Put Away
by ncfan
Summary: Sometimes, even swords just needed to be put away.


I own nothing.

* * *

"I can't believe it's been three hundred years since we last saw him," Elrond murmured, leaning against the wall in the quiet chamber, staring out the window down onto the streets below.

It was the three-hundredth year of the Second Age of the Sun, and the Adan King of Númenor and his Elven brother, who was making a rather rare visit to Númenor, away, far away, from Gil-Galad's court in Lindon. Elros had long ago concluded that Elrond was avoiding him, and the fact that he knew exactly why didn't make it any easier to swallow. But Elros had a country to administer and a people to rule. He'd never been one for holding grudges and he really had far too much to do to start trying to undergo the laborious task of forming one against his own brother.

Elros's graying eyebrows shot up as he looked over at his twin. "Maglor, do you mean?"

Half-framed by light, Elrond nodded, a shadow of a three centuries old pain, dulled only slightly by time, still there, passing over his face. It was amazing how little the passage of time took the edge off of certain pains, left forgotten in day-to-day life, but so easy to dredge up. All it took was the smallest thing. Elros knew that pain well. "Three hundred years, and not a trace nor a whisper of him," his brother muttered, looking away. "You really start to wonder if he didn't drown as Gil-Galad had told us he had."

Elros winced, and nodded.

Not a trace…

That wasn't quite correct.

Elros had already been with the Edain, where they were told to congregate and wait for further instructions, but Elrond had chosen to stay with their foster-father and uncle until the end. Young as he was, and unlike Elros, yet unmarried, it was only proper. So thus it was Elrond alone whom Gil-Galad had broken the news to, that Maglor and Maedhros had both taken their own lives when it was revealed that the Silmarils would not suffer their touch; Elros had gotten the tale secondhand from his brother.

They had both grieved, though truth be told Elrond had taken it especially hard. By that point in time, Elros had already forged a life of his own among the Edain; while Maglor and Maedhros were both still a daily presence in his life, he was walking his own path by then. Elrond, on the other hand, had not. They grieved, but after a couple of years, the truth came out.

Just listening to the other soldiers gossip and recount old tales had been enough to do it. Maedhros had indeed taken his own life, but Maglor had fled down the shore, and no one had seen or heard tell of him since. Gil-Galad admitted to the truth readily enough, with the air of someone who had done what, in his mind, was necessary, but still considered it unpleasant; he had, he'd claimed, feared that the two of them would waste the rest of their lives trying to find someone who had no life to return to and did not wish to be found.

By that time, Elros was King of Númenor, then called Elenna, and Elrond served as Gil-Galad's herald. They both had duties that kept them from searching for their foster-father, and in all honesty, they had no idea of whether or not he was still living and had no idea of where to even begin looking for him.

Elros had been walking along the shore, alone, the night after the truth came out, when he saw a glinting of metal in the moonlight. Lying on the beach was a great long sword, sheathed, its hilt shining in the darkness under the light of the Moon.

He knew this sword. He would have known it anywhere. How many times had he seen it in Amon Ereb or in the Edain camp, great and bright and beautiful? He even knew how it had come to be Maglor's; his foster-father had told him the story one early summer's day, that one of his younger brothers had given it to him as a replacement for his last sword, which he had broken in a "downright embarrassing" training accident.

Seeing the sword lying there in the sand, Elros had cast his eyes about for any sign of Maglor. There was none. Not even footsteps in the sand.

How had the sword gotten there? Perhaps Maglor had left it there for him or his brother to find. Perhaps he'd taken it off before wading out in the sea and finally drowning himself as Gil-Galad had tried to tell his two fosterlings that he'd done. Perhaps he'd abandoned it the night he'd fled from the wrath of his kinsmen, and somehow it had just lied there unnoticed until Elros found it. Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.

Elros had taken the sword, and told no one of his discovery.

Nowadays, he did not use the sword, nor did he keep it out on display. It didn't seem appropriate. For all that he was deadly with any weapon he chose to wield, Maglor had had little enthusiasm left (if he'd ever had much to begin with) for warfare by the time Elros knew him. He kept his weapons in good shape, but he did not love them. On some unconscious level, Elros suspected that he hated them, even his bright, beautiful sword. He certainly hadn't ascribed much value to any of his weapons beyond their ability to keep him alive. These days, Elros kept the sword in good repair, making sure that its edge was still sharp and that neither the blade nor the hilt were in any danger of rusting (Though somehow, he suspected that neither would). He would hold it on his lap, and remember.

But most of the time, the sword stayed in its trunk at the foot of his bed.

The past gave him pain; that was true enough. The sword was the only thing Elros had of Maglor; he would have to settle for having nothing of Maedhros except memories. Having the sword was a comfort. It let him know that those improbably happy days had not been a delusion or a dream he had had.

All the same, the past was the past. Elros had a kingdom to rule. He had a family of his own to love and cherish, wife and children and grandchildren to look after and guide towards finding paths of their own. Sometimes the turbulent past and everything that went along with it, even swords, just needed to be put away.

* * *

The Lord of the Rings wiki and Tolkien gateway both suggest that Narsil, which like Angrist (the knife belonging first to Curufin and later to Beren) was made by the Dwarven smith Telchar in the First Age, had at one point belonged to Maglor, and that it was eventually passed down to Elros; heck, the latter goes beyond suggesting and outright says that it was, despite the fact that, unless the proof is in one of the HoME books that I don't currently have, there's no canon evidence to back this up. I'm personally torn between finding the theory ridiculous and plausible, but it would explain how a Dwarven-made sword of the First Age made its way to Númenor.


End file.
